Recovery
by Harvey Elwood
Summary: Sherlock and John rush home in great need of attending to their injuries. Hideously fluffy.


**Disclaimer: **I own neither John nor Sherlock nor BBC Sherlock nor bathtubs.

**Warning: **This fic contains descriptions of cuts and bruises and has a teaching of how to do stitches on a wound. If any of that triggers you, I suggest you leave. (Man, this is usually where I say that it contains smut but this fic doesn't contain any smut.)

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Sherlock and John barely made their way up the stairs to 221B, after they did John frantically closed and locked the door behind him. Sherlock made his way to closing the curtains on all of the windows . As Sherlock turned to look at John Watson whose breathing was labored, sitting on the floor, John's eyes went wide, and Sherlock realized that there was something wrong with him.

"You're bleeding," John said and he got up, none too gracefully from his spot on the floor and went over to him.

"As are you," Sherlock replied.

"Here, we need to clean ourselves up," John said, and John lead Sherlock by the hand to the bathroom. John told Sherlock to sit up on the counter of the bathroom, and Sherlock did so.

"You have a cut on your arm," Sherlock observed.

"That's fine, your head, it's bleeding," John said, and he washed the wound out with alcohol swabs before doing anything else.

"Ow, fuck!" Sherlock swore.

"I know," John said, he noted that it really must've hurt his partner, Sherlock almost never swore, he had a massive vocabulary.

The cut was on Sherlock's temple near his eyebrow, a very common place to have a cut like that. John started sewing up the wound with professional knowing hands to stop the bleeding. Tears, although he didn't want them to, started falling out of Sherlock's eyes from the pain.

"It's going to be okay, Sherlock," John consoled, "I'm a doctor, I can take care of you."

"Tell me how to do it," Sherlock demanded.

"Do what?"

"Make stitches on a wound," Sherlock replied, "because I need to do it to you."

John finally looked at his injury, "Yes, you're right, Sherlock."

John hurriedly took off his jumper, standing half-naked in front of Sherlock, he looked at the gash on his arm. It was deep and bleeding profusely, before he thought of what to look for in the symptoms before losing consciousness from blood loss, he began to feel dizzy. John took off and wadded up his jumper and told Sherlock to apply pressure to it to make the blood stop.

With Sherlock's hands on the jumper on John's arms, John talked through to Sherlock everything that he was doing to sew up Sherlock's wound.

"The needle is in a half-moon curve, you put the tip of the needle at the skin on the lower side of the wound, you push it out through the skin on the other side of the wound, you pull it all the way through so the thread's taught. Then you repeat the process right next to the stitch you've just made before, understand?"

"Yes," Sherlock replied, not nodding.

Sherlock's gash, sewn up now, was covered with gauze that had medicine put in it by the good doctor. He taped it onto Sherlock, and then got on the counter himself. Sherlock felt dizzy himself, while the gas wasn't too big, it was well known that heads bled a lot, more than anywhere on the body.

Sherlock looked closely at the wound, then cleaned it with alcohol swabs as instructed by John, through hisses at the stinging pain.

It took a long time to get the stitches right. Sherlock might have been a genius, really, but that was his first time doing stitches, and his hands were shaking, he didn't want to do something wrong and hurt his partner.

With the snip of scissors, it was finally done. Sherlock cut gauze strips, dabbed on the medicine and put on the medical tape.

"Thank you," John said gratefully, "Will they find us here?"

"No," Sherlock said, "We lost them a few blocks back. They're daft, they won't think to think they're anywhere near where we actually are. We'll be fine."

"Good," John nodded, "Are you hurt anywhere else?"

"My body aches," Sherlock replied.

"I'll run a bath," John said, "Take off your clothes."

John leaned over and pushed the plug in, then turned the water onto lukewarm. Sherlock took off his scarf, let it drop to the floor, then took off his overcoat and let that drop to the floor. John went under the sink and got out the bath salts that were used to calm nerves and soak the aches and pains in muscles, John sprinkled them in the bath and took off his own clothes.

Sherlock's arms and hips were colored and painted in the agonizing colors of fresh bruises, they were all yellow at the center and brownish around, John knew as he saw his partner's skin, that by morning he would be awash in bright purple, black, and blue spots on his body. Looking down at his own naked specimen, he saw himself to be covered in the same yellow and brown spots.

Sherlock got in the tub first, and settled so his back was sitting on the opposite side from the water-spout. John tried to sit in the tub so his back was facing the spot and his heels were pointing towards Sherlock. When he tried to relax, his back hit the spout, and he jumped forward – probably had a red mark and a burn too now.

"Come," Sherlock motioned, "lay against me."

So John shimmied himself awkwardly over to Sherlock, and Sherlock opened his legs, so John was sitting athwart his hips. John leaned and relaxed against the detective's chest, his head cradled in Sherlock's shoulder. John pushed the spout to a stop with his foot. Soon, all you could hear was the electricity of the lights buzzing above them, and their breathing.

The bloody bandages littered the counter, their clothes in piles on the floor, the two naked men lay breathing in the tub.

"We're alive," John commented.

"Obviously," Sherlock said, tired.

John smirked to himself, and Sherlock's hand found John's and began playing with his fingers tiredly. John smiled, it wasn't often that Sherlock did something to show his affection for John physically in ways other than sex. When he did, it was nice like this: playing with his hands, settling one foot over his under tables at restaurants, stroking John's hair after sex as John drifted off to sleep, laying his head on John's lap as John watched telly on mute and Sherlock's hands steepled under his chin.

Suddenly, bringing himself back to life, Sherlock cleared his throat loudly in the tub.

John moved so his face was in the younger man's neck, "Yes?"

"I love you," Sherlock said abruptly.

"What?"

"I love you," Sherlock repeated.

"You never say that," John retorted.

"I believe when one says 'I love you' the other half is supposed to respond with 'I love you too' or possibly 'and I love you' or 'I love you back'. Something like that – "

"That's not what I mean," John argued, "I love you too."

There was a pause as the two stared at each other's eyes intensely.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to react like that," John began, "I love you too. I really do, I love you a lot. It's just that when you say those words, you usually say them during sex, or after sex, or right when we're about to attack someone and I can see it in your eyes. I can see it, that you're not completely sure if we're going to make it out alive. And that's what you want our last words together to be, is 'I love you'. But you never say it at times like this. When everything's okay and we're not having sex."

"Does that bother you?"

"What? That you never say it when the situations not intense? No. Yes. I'm not sure. It's just that….I don't know, Sherlock."

"You do _know _that I love you though, right?" Sherlock asked.

"Of course I do."

"Fine," Sherlock said, "then that's cleared up, then."

"It doesn't work like that," John replied, "There's a reason people say it. They like it when their partner says it so they say it too because, Oh God, I don't know, Sherlock. I don't know other people, I just know us. And I know there's a reason why I say 'I love you' and why you say 'I love you' but I just don't know – "

"You're blathering," Sherlock observed, cutting him off.

"Yes, I'm blathering," John nodded, "I'm blathering and I love you. And…I love you, Sherlock, that's what I'm trying to say. Is that I love you."

"I love you too," Sherlock smiled. And, as if, they weren't bleeding, aching, injured, and bruised naked in the bath-tub, Sherlock gently _gently _kissed John's forehead. John sighed in contentedness, and his warm breath hit Sherlock's shivering skin.

Yawning, John kissed Sherlock's bleeding knuckles, and yawned again.

"I'm tired," John said.

As Sherlock's fingers intertwined with his lover's, he yawned, and said, "Yawning is a call-and-response between two or more people telling them how comfortable they are with them."

Yawning, John said, "I thought it was just a tired thing."

Sherlock yawned, and said, "No, it means 'I love you'."

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**Author's Note: **I don't know how to do stitches. If you're bleeding, go see a doctor and get a medical professional to do stitches for you, okay? Also, I have a scar exactly where Sherlock has one in this fic! (Not that any of you care.) Would you care if I told you the procuring of that scar involved a Gay-Straight Alliance Meeting, a steep hill, concrete stairs and a very stupid me? No? Okay. Please review.


End file.
